Mark Colaio & Stephen Colaio:
Together, Start to Finish
There
are countless ways to encapsulate Mark and Stephen
Colaio, but the T-shirts do it in three words. The
brothers owned matching shirts that they wore every
chance they got. On the front was inscribed, "Life Is
Good."
"They drank up life," said their sister, Jean Colaio
Steinbach. Mark was 34, two years older than Stephen, and
in the best sense of an elder brother, he always looked
out for him. As their sister put it, "From Little League
to Wall Street, they were best friends."
Mark Colaio was a senior managing director and ran the
agency desk at Cantor Fitzgerald, and he recruited his
brother to work with him as a broker on the desk.
Granted, they had their distinctive sides. Stephen
Colaio, for instance, adored the song "Rapper's Delight"
by the Sugar Hill Gang, and knew it by heart.
Then there was that hair thing with Mark Colaio. One
day last summer, he and his father, Victor, were getting
their hair cut. They decided to opt for pretty short. In
an impromptu moment, they decided to go the limit and
shaved their heads entirely. They announced that shaved
heads would henceforth become a summer ritual.
Family was paramount to the brothers Colaio. Mark
Colaio lived with his wife, June, and two children,
Delaney, 3, and Joseph, 22 months, in TriBeCa. Stephen
Colaio, who was engaged, lived a few blocks away. So did
their sister.
One recent night, Victor Colaio told his daughter, "I
lost my beautiful sons, but I lost my two best friends.
That's how I feel about it. They were my best
friends."
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